


morning, come slow

by lochTenderness (theseourbodies)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Domesticity, Kagakuro Mini Event, M/M, like...the softest feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/lochTenderness
Summary: Taiga's not much of a thinker normally, but sometimes he has these dreams.Taiga has anxious dreams sometimes. He has a routine, but like most things in his life, living with Kuroko shakes things up.





	morning, come slow

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 1 (RIP ME THIS IS SO LATE) of the KagaKuro mini event, hosted by tumblr user kurokagakuro. 
> 
> the theme was 'cooking/nights', which i decided to combine.

Taiga's not much of a thinker normally, but sometimes he has these dreams. Not nightmares, but not good dreams, either. Silly things mostly-- walking onto a court in a packed stadium without his shorts on, forgetting tests and homework, stuff like that. Sometimes, though he has dreams that feel like memories; hell, sometimes they are memories, but a little crooked, you know? Like--He's 10 years old again, standing on a familiar old court after the first time that he and Tatsuya played against one another, but Tatsuya isn't the 11-year-old Tatsuya; he's  like he was when Taiga met him again in Tokyo. He's so tall to Taiga in the dream, and cold-eyed like he was that day at the tournament, and Taiga wakes up finally in a cold sweat, trying to shake the feeling of being small off of him-- small physically, which essentially never now that he's grown up, and small emotionally, which still happens more than Taiga cares to admit.  

Mostly when Taiga has dreams like that, that wake him up with the shakes or-- sometimes, only rarely-- tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes, he can't go back to sleep. Maybe he's scared of having the dream again, whatever, but by adulthood he's tried all the tricks people gave him for falling asleep before games and there's nothing doing. So, when he wakes up and he can't get back to sleep, he usually has a set routine-- get up, pull a hoodie on over his sleep shorts and bare chest, go into his kitchen and try whatever recipe he's been thinking about making. The end results usually aren't anything to write home about, but they're pretty passable for something he makes when he's still mostly half asleep. Plus, the times when whatever he makes is completely inedible decrease slowly as he gets older and got a better handle on what did and didn't work in the kitchen, so he got a good midnight snack out of the deal.  

The first time it happens when Kuroko’s with him, things change. Things always change when Kuroko comes around, though, and Taiga knows that by now.  Still, he’s only a simply guy, so it may take him a little longer than it should to really catch on.  

\-- 

Taiga shakes awake and knows two things right away—one, the sun isn't up, so it's too early to not be asleep; and two, he's not alone. It takes him a long, terrible moment to calm his heart after that realization, but of course he's not alone-- he hasn't slept alone since Kuroko had gotten through customs and finally landed, warm and welcome and  _real_  in Taiga's arms again. So, of course he’s not alone. Kuroko is still and sleeping beside him, no matter what Taiga's dumb brain is trying to tell him. The dream, the anxiety from the dream, the pounding of his heart-- they fade as Taiga watches Kuroko's chest rise and fall, up and down, up, up and down again. Kuroko's here-- he's not going away again, he'd promised, they'd promised one another. Taiga didn't have to be anxious about what-ifs anymore, and his anxious dreams could fuck right off in the face of that simple fact.  

But that still leaves Taiga wide awake and unable to get back to sleep again, no matter how warm the bed felt with another body in it, or how dark his room-- their room-- still was. He still tries, of course; he stays stubbornly curled onto his side, watching Kuroko sleep and listening to his sleeping breath. The numbers on the clock he can see just past Kuroko’s slack face burn through ten minutes, and Taiga finally gives in and gives up. He’s grateful that Kuroko sleeps like the dead as he peels his bed spread off his legs and slowly eases himself off the bed. No matter how Kuroko sleeps, Taiga still has to be careful—the Dog might be as sneaky and curious as his master, but he sleeps as restlessly as Taiga, and if Taiga’s not careful... 

A snuffle and shift from the corner of the room tells Taiga he’s already been sniffed out, but he saves his grumbling until he and Nigou both make it out of the bedroom with the door closed softly behind him.  

“Dumb mutt, I don’t need company,” Taiga mutters down at Nigou’s little face. Nigou just yawns up at him, tail swishing gently in a sleepy wag. Taiga resolves to ignore him and stalks as quietly as he can to the kitchen, accompanied only by the sound of little clicking claws. Surprisingly, it helps-- the sound’s somehow become familiar to him over the course of a few days, like Kuroko’s breathing at night.  

Taiga’s already got a recipe in mind, and despite his shadow-act in the hallway, Nigou stays out from under his feet. Kuroko has very few rules when it comes to his dog, but what he has he enforces strictly.  Taiga had boggled to watch Kuroko kneel down to have a ‘discussion’ with the dog, but however he had done it, the message had gotten across—no being tricky or playing around Taiga when he was in the kitchen where there were knives and flames and things that were boiling. So, as soon as he crosses the kitchen threshold, Taiga is free to rifle through his cabinets and refridgerator completely unmolested-- all he has to deal with is Nigou making disturbingly familiar puppy-dog eyes at him from his little basket tucked in an out-of-the-way corner.  

Taiga makes it all the way through prep and flipped on the range as quietly as possible when something knocks gently behind him. It startles him a little, but not badly— Kuroko was careful to wait until Taiga had set everything down. Nigou whuffles sleepily in greeting as Taiga looks over his shoulder guiltily just in time to see Kuroko reach down to gently scoop the dog up and cuddle him close. It’s uncharacteristically cute, but that’s just how Kuroko is during the rare moments when he’s off-guard—like now just past three in the morning when he should have been  _asleep,_ Taiga thinks guiltily. 

“Hey,” he greets softly, sticking an arm out almost on instinct, inviting touch. Kuroko, still swaying sleepily, obliges with Nigou still making content dog noises in his arms until Taiga has both of them pressed gently to his front.  

“Taiga, it is very early,” Kuroko mutters into the fabric over Taiga’s chest, and Taiga winces. 

“Thought I was being quiet, sorry.”  

“Taiga was, and that is what woke me-- even in your sleep you are noisy,” Kuroko tells him, tilting his head back to favor Taiga with a tired, small smile when Taiga growls at him. “It is nice-- I got used to it during the first visit and found that I was unable to sleep well without it—without you.”  

Taiga settles under the weight of the admission; he brings a hand up to rest against the back of Kuroko’s neck, a casual intimacy he’d been indulging in since he got Kuroko home from the airport. Getting to this place with Kuroko, living stateside together, had taken time-- a long time. The time between trips to see one another had slowly gone from a nuisance to absolutely unbearable until it had come down to Kuroko—always the bravest of the two of them—asking the simplest, hardest question of their lives. And now Kuroko would be living with noisy Kagami Taiga for the rest of his life.  

 “Well, you can’t get rid of me, now,” Taiga tells him, gruff with emotion. “But this happens sometimes—I'm sorry I didn’t warn you.”  

Kuroko rubs his nose against the front of Taiga’s hoodie and shrugs. “I know now,” he murmurs, “but please--” 

 “Please--?” Taiga prompts when Kuroko trails off.  

 “....Please do not leave. It was not good to wake up and realize that I was alone in bed in the middle of the night. I find it-- uncomfortable.”  

Taiga thinks about his own nights, blinking awake from pleasant memory-dreams only to realize that Kuroko had left a day ago, a week ago, months ago, and there was no telling when he or Taiga could get the time off again to see one another properly. The warmth he had felt in the bed next to him was a distant memory that faded, faster and faster every time Kuroko left.  He pulls Kuroko closer with the hand against the back of his neck, presses first his forehead to Kuroko’s, then a soft brush of his lips—apology and thanks all rolled in to one gesture that Taiga thinks probably isn’t enough. But Kuroko understands; or, at least he leans in the Taiga, slumping against him until Nigou makes a little noise of complaint. Taiga thinks the dog sounds a little reluctant to break the moment, crazy as it seems.  

Kuroko pulls away at the sound, letting Taiga’s hand slip away much to Taiga’s reluctance.  

“Time to go back to bed, I think,” Kuroko tells Nigou’s watchful little face. He gives Taiga a smile and leaves him with a little brush of his hand against Taiga’s shoulder before he and the dog shuffle back to the dark bedroom. Nigous sneaks ahead to  lead the way as Taiga watches, and Kuroko follows him dutifully with the fingers of one hand trailing along the hallway wall. Even in the low light barely bleeding from the kitchen, the metal on one finger glows. Taiga realizes after he’s watched the bedroom door close behind Kuroko that he’s been fiddling with his own metal band, which, like Kuroko’s, hasn’t left his ring finger since Kuroko slid it home there three days ago. He looks stares at his hand, and the band of body warm metal, then glances at the stock pot waiting patiently on the range.  

“The fuck am I doing,” he mutters, almost angrily, “what the fuck am I  _doing.”_  

He flicks the range dial off sharply, and throws a dishtowel over the shopped ingredients on his cutting board—who cares if he can’t sleep for the rest of the night? It’s not an empty apartment keeping him company anymore—there's a warm bed and his partner waiting just down the hall.  

Taiga’s never been much of a thinker, but he’s not that much of an idiot—the choice between an empty kitchen and that warm, friendly bed is no choice at all. When he makes his way back to where he should have stayed in the first place, he wraps one arm around Kuroko’s waist and presses his own smile to the soft, sleepy one Kuroko gives him.  

“Good night, Taiga.”  

Taiga buries his nose in the soft hair at Kuroko’s temple and murmurs, “Good night, Tetsuya.” He lets the words wash away the memory of the soft hurt he had started to feel near the end of their time apart, when every ‘good night’ was met with a ‘good morning.’ He settles deeper into the mattress, their mattress, and listens to Kuroko’s breathing even out. He barely notices when his own breaths get long and longer, caught up in Kuroko’s pace like he always is, until he slips back into sleep without missing a beat.    


End file.
